PCbanter - View Single Post - Cloning a 2.5" IDE/PATA Laptop Hard drive

**Paul[_32_]** · November 15th 17, 11:56 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general

wrote:
On Wed, 15 Nov 2017 15:20:27 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message ,
writes:
[]
I do wonder if getting a different brand of modem would help though. I
It might ...
[]
I think a lot of the problems is my ISP. They have pretty much abandoned
the dialup, but they know that some of us rural people cant connect any
other way. so they keep a few modems running for those of us who have a
... as long as the "spiral of death" isn't caused by the other end.

(I still can't understand why you don't get it with Windows 98, but I
sympathise that you're fed up of trying things!)

landline from them. Where I live, I must have a landline because my
cellphone dont get a signal.

Would it be possible to erect some sort of aerial - do cellular signals
reach your location but too far above ground level? Or are you so remote
that you are not in a coverage area at all? I appreciate it'd be
awkward, since modern 'phones don't have an aerial socket, and it'd have
to be bidirectional, which makes boosters difficult (though can be
done), but if there is a signal, two passive but high-gain (i. e.
directional) aerials connected together, in your loft or on a pole,
_might_ make life a bit more bearable.

Thanks for starting a new thread. I was considering doing the same.

I have never understood why Win98 works and not any NT based OS. I still
have Win2000 installed on the same computer as Win98. All I use it for
is to do backups, because Win98 cant handle those external hard drives
on USB. I love Win98, but USB support has always been lousy. By (dual)
booting to Win2000, I can copy everything from my HDD to my backup,
including the Win98 OS files. I would have XP instead in that partition,
but this computer is not quite up to Xp level for power and such.

No, I dont get a usable cellphone signal. I live down a hill, cellphone
signals are poor to start with, and being downhill from the nearby town,
I dont get much. Sometimes I get one bar, but have to go outside (metal
covered house). But I know I will lose the signal at any time during the
call. Other times I dont get any signal. Most of the time I drive up the
hill to make calls. Thats why I keep my landline. In bad weather or an
emergency, I rely on that landline. I do not have long distance on that
landline, but I can call all local emergency numbers as well as persons
or busineesses in the immediate area. I dont make many long dist. calls,
but when I do, I do have to go up that hill and use the cellphone.

I do think the dialup problem is on the other end (ISP), but that still
dont explain why Win98 works and not any NT based OSs.

Being rural has it's disadvantages, but I'll accept the technology
disadvantages before I'd ever live in a city. The firsdt part of my life
was in a city, and I hated it.

I know they sell signal boosters for cellphones. I am sure that having
an antenna on the roof and a booster could solve the metal house
limitations, but I'd still be boosting a very weak signal.

The only way to get high speed internet here is a satellite, and that's
very costly around here. They sell the whole package, TV, Internet, and
other stuff, at a cost of well over $100 per month. I cant afford it,
and I do not want the tv part. I have a 40ft tv antenna, and I get
enough tv stations to suit me. I mostly just watch ME-TV anyhow. I'm
elderly and like the old shows. Modern tv is crap in my opinion.

There are multiple kinds of dialup modems.

They all have to (somehow) do the following.

RJ-11 --- DAA ------------------ ADC ------------------ DSP ---- (PPP)
Data Access convert beeps convert samples
Arrangement into digital samples in the frequency
Separate phone high at 8KHz rate. Just domain, to 0/1 in
voltage from PC low like a sound chip. time domain. The
voltages. Dumb cct, frequencies separate
"like a piece of iron". into bins or buckets
(just like ADSL!).

On your USR Sportster, there is a chip called a Datapump
inside the modem. It does DSP at 80-90MHz or so. It's
a processor doing the DSP function. The USR Sportster
should be relatively consistent from one OS to another.
That's why we buy them, consistent performance without
need of ugly drivers. The modem works at the "AT command"
level. The spiral of death, is solely a function of the
firmware behavior of the DSP. Modems like this, when flashed
up to V92, basically run a different firmware that
includes the DSP function for V92 protocol. The firmware
file should be a little larger, as the firmware has to
be able to drop back from V92-V90-V34 and so on.

On a "Winmodem" or softmodem, the card you buy is really
cheap, because it contains a DAA plus an ADC. The DSP portion
is done by the system processor. This means you're on the hook
for a driver which does DSP. A well-written DSP algo, can
actually do 1% better transfer rates than the Sportster
(I tested this, and couldn't believe my eyes, and
had to repeat the A/B testing several times to be sure).
The driver, makes *all* the difference. No driver, no workie.

So the Winmodem has the DAA (transformer) plus an analog
to digital converter. Well, how could we make that even
cheaper ?

On my laptop, the softmodem function is done with a
sound chip. That means the laptop still needs a DAA,
but the ADC (analog to digital converter) function is
done with a sound chip. The driver situation on the
laptop is no different than the one in the previous
paragraph. No matter what OS, a driver with DSP code
in it is needed to convert the laptop sound chip output,
into ones and zeros for the PPP protocol the OS terminates.

While I used to believe the Sportster was superior
in every way, and I was always shopping for datapump
modems, the reality is, if you're lucky, and the
other kind comes with a "good driver", it can work
just as well. And that's really the trick. Do the
customer reviews indicate a driver is available
for the OS in question ? What do the customers
think of the driver ? Is it crap ? Even the Sportster
can have its issues, but I discovered the "generic"
dialup string is frequently enough to make the
Sportster work OK. Just because WinXP "can't find"
an entry for the most modern Sportster, you can
actually make it work with the "generic" modem
detection.

Paul